


Love is as High as Honor

by Sofisol612



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Dysfunctional Family, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Pre-A Game of Thrones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:53:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5402075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sofisol612/pseuds/Sofisol612
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robert decides to ask the question that expresses all the doubts that haunted his mind, hoping that his father would answer him and deign to talk to him for once. “Father, why did you marry Mother?”</p><p>“Why do you ask me this, Robert?” The father asks then.</p><p>“I am asking you this because I want to know. If you didn’t love Mother, why did you marry her?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Robert's Question

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [El amor está mas alto que el honor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1850713) by [Sofisol612](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sofisol612/pseuds/Sofisol612). 



The Hand of the King and his son are seated at the table of the small hall in the Tower of the Hand. They eat in silence, hardly looking at each other or uttering a sound. There was never a strong relationship between them, partly because the child was always with his mother, who didn’t get on well with his father, but also because Jon already had too many things to concern himself with as Hand of the King, with the other Robert.

Usually Lysa dines with them too, but this time they are alone. She has excused herself saying she suffered from a terrible headache, and she has stayed in her room. She has been there for 2 entire days, without leaving her chambers any time. Robert has come in to see her several times since she locked herself there, and she has behaved as sweetly as always when she was with her son, stroking his hair, telling him stories before the afternoon nap and nursing him, but the kid knows that his father has not spoken to her in that time.

As Robert stirs his vegetable soup slowly, hoping for his bedtime to come before he could drink it, he reflects absent-mindedly on his father, the man sitting in front of him, who, despite being so near, seems to be very far away, his mind full of thoughts that Robert would never guess. The boy knows little of his father, and he sees him as a stranger, in spite of being his son and of living with him. He wonders whether his mother knows Jon Arryn, or if he is a stranger for her as well. He knows his mother doesn’t love her husband: the way she looks at him, the Little frequency with which they talk, the quarrels that are longer each time, the awkward silences and the discomfort in her voice each time Robert asks her anything about his father make this pretty clear to him. But he is not sure about what his father feels. Jon doesn’t talk much about his mother, but he doesn’t talk much about anything with Robert. His worries seem to be far from his family, and he appears rather tired and annoyed by his marital troubles instead of deeply concerned.

His parent’s fights are normal for him and, as he has always lived with them, he has rarely paid them any mind. Now, though, he is a bit older, and he starts questioning some things. He wonders why his parents seem to hate each other so much. He wonders whether there is some love between them, hidden somewhere. He wonders what made them end up married to each other. Did they love each other when they got married? And if they did, what has happened to the love they bore each other?

Robert then decides to ask the question that expresses all the doubts that haunted his mind, hoping that his father would answer him and deign to talk to him for once. “Father, why did you marry Mother?”

Jon looks up from his plate to meet his son’s eyes. He frowns, as if he was puzzled by the question. “What did you say?”

“I have asked you why you married Mother,” the child repeats, getting impatient.

“Why do you ask me this, Robert?” The father asks then.

His father was taking him for a fool, Robert realizes. He was asking him questions so as not to have to answer his. But he would not let him do that: Robert knows very well that he is the one who asks the questions and his father is who should answer them.

“I am asking you this because I want to know. If you didn’t love Mother, why did you marry her?” His voice rises when he asks this, sounding as demanding as a child can possibly be.

“How do you know…?” Jon starts, but then he stops. Maybe he has realized that his son won’t admit any more evasions, Robert thinks, pleased. “Well, I guess you don’t need to be an outstanding observer to notice that there is little love between your mother and me,” the father confesses with a sigh. “But the story of how I ended up marrying her is somewhat long, and I don’t think it will be amusing to you. Maybe it will be better for me not to tell you.”

“No! I want to hear that story!” Robert cries out.

Jon Arryn gives his son a hard and fixed look, and there is a tense silence as their eyes meet. For some seconds none of them moves or looks away. Finally Robert drops his gaze, unable to keep holding his father’s.

“I will tell you the story you wish to hear if you promise to finish your soup, stop yelling like a spoiled child and go to bed immediately after. I will not put up with my son behaving in such disrespectful way, with me or with anyone else.” His father’s voice has not risen, but it has but it has become stern and, together with the harsh look he devotes his child, it lets Robert know that Jon will not give in. He isn’t like his mother, who indulges him and allows him to do practically anything he likes. His father is different, and the boy must be careful while he deals with him.

“I promise, father.” Robert looks down, and he puts a spoonful of soup in his mouth, to show that he is telling the truth.

“Good. You must surely know, Robert, that I have been married to other women before I wedded your mother.” Jon looks into his son’s eyes, and he nods. “My first wife died trying to give birth to our daughter, a baby who died before she was born. My second wife was my cousin, and she died without ever getting pregnant.” The father looks at his son again, to see how he reacts to this. What he sees seems to satisfy him, for he continues. “I wished to have children, but I wasn’t especially concerned about my lack of direct heirs. I had other relatives; nephews, nieces and cousins who could inherit the Eyrie if I happened to die without issue. Still, I wanted to have children to look after, love and raise. They didn’t need to have my blood; I just wanted them to live with me and see me as a father figure and role model. So, some years after my second wife’s death I finally got the children I so much wanted to have.”

“But, how could that be? I have no siblings!” The boy exclaims. This story is confusing him, and he hates being confused. He feels small, weak and stupid when he doesn’t understand what they tell him.

“You are right, Robert: you have no siblings. The children I brought up in the Eyrie as if they were my own were my wards, but I was a second father to them, and they were the closest thing to a son that I had then. Ned Stark lived in the Eyrie since he was 8, when his father decided he wanted his second son to know places and customs of Westeros aside from the ones of the North, and to meet people who were not of his family. Robert Baratheon came some years after that. He was a boy of 10, and heir to Storm’s End. His father, Lord Steffon, wanted Robert to spend some time away from the stormlands, just like Ned’s father. So he decided to ask me, a high lord with no children who already had a ward, whether I would like to have another one. I said yes and, in less than a moon’s turn Robert arrived at the Eyrie. I raised my wards as if they were my own children, and they grew up together like brothers.”

“But Father, Robert Baratheon is the king! And Lord Stark is my uncle! You can’t have been their guardian.”

“Now I couldn’t. But at that moment, Robert Baratheon was a kid, and the thought that he could become a King someday hadn’t so much as crossed his mind. Ned was a boy too, and he wasn’t yet betrothed to your aunt. Besides, I hadn’t yet even thought of marrying your mother, who was then about your age.” Jon stops again to study his son’s face. The boy takes advantage of the pause to process the information, and he realizes that the past of which his father speaks was very different from the world he knows, and though he doesn’t understand it fully, he accepts that nearly anything could happen there. His acceptance must show in his face, for Jon Arryn resumes the story.

“At that time, Aerys Targaryen, second of his name, sat the Iron Throne. He wasn’t a good king, but while his actions didn’t harm me I didn’t react. I had no reasons to do it, and opposing that King was a dangerous thing. But one day Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, the king’s son, disappeared with young Lyanna Stark, Ned Stark’s younger sister, who was betrothed to Robert Baratheon.” Jon pauses so that his son can relate all those names mentioned in one sentence before he continues. “I didn’t intervene then either, and it was Brandon Stark, Ned’s older brother, the one who went to King’s Landing to defy Rhaegar, demanding him to ‘come out and die.’ But Rhaegar was not in King’s Landing, and it was the King who answered the challenge. He took Brandon and the men who had come with him captive and called Lord Rickard Stark to settle the matter with a trial.”

“And what happened then? Did they kill the prisoners after the trial?” Robert asks.

“Actually, son, there was no trial. The Mad King had Rickard and Brandon Stark executed on the spot, without trying them. And then he sent a bird to the Eyrie, demanding that I sent him the heads of my 2 wards.” Jon answers, with a sad voice. “You know our words, don’t you, Robert?”

“Yes, Father: As High as Honor.” Robert replies proudly. He doesn’t know much of the Vale of Arryn and its lords, but the words of his house he knows by hard since he could remember.

“That’s right, son. I had always been an honorable man, and betraying my King was something I had never thought I would do. But, who did I owe my loyalty to? To that mad king, or to my wards, who looked up to me as sons to their father? It wasn’t a particularly hard question to answer.”


	2. Jon's Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I married Lady Lysa the same day that Ned, who had been a son to me, married her older sister. I remember your mother’s pale face, her eyes red from so much crying.” Jon sighs. “She was just 16 namedays old. Surely you, Robert, think that a girl of that age is already an adult, but I only saw in your mother a frightened little girl. I wished to comfort her, but I couldn’t: It was me she was afraid of.”

Jon looks up to see his son, who is sitting in front of him, attentively waiting for him to continue with the story. But he has stopped eating again, and this makes him angry. He is about to make him finish the soup in silence and without hearing the ending of the story as a punishment, when he sees that the reason why he is not eating is that his dish is already empty. This surprises him and makes him proud: persuading Robert to finish a food he dislikes when the boy knows perfectly that he has his mother’s milk in case he is sent to bed without his dinner is not an easy task, and he has accomplished it.

“So? What happened after that, father?” The boy asks when he notices that his father has stopped talking. “Why don’t you go on with the story?”

“I’ve just noticed that you have finished your dinner. Do you want a dessert, then? I think there is an apple pie,” Jon offers.

“Yes, I want some apple pie,” Robert accepts. “But I also want you to go on with the story.”

“Of course, I will tell you what happened after.” Jon calls the serving girl. “Can you bring us an apple pie?” The girl nods and says she shall bring it at once, before leaving for the kitchen.

Jon is pleased. Lysa has told him that Robert needs her to be beside him all the time, and that the boy isn’t ready to live apart from his mother yet. That he needs her to lay him down to sleep, to feed him, to protect him from the cruel boys that mock him when he plays. Robert couldn’t survive without his mother, because he is just a child, too weak and innocent yet to stand on his own. Yet today Jon is taking care of his son without his wife’s help, and everything seems to be going perfectly. If he, who has barely spent some time with his son in the past, can do it, Jon has no reason to think that Stannis should have more trouble with him in Dragonstone.

“Come on, father! You promised you’d tell me the story!” Robert reminds him angrily.

“That’s right. I made you a promise, and I shall be true to my word,” the father confirms. “When King Aerys II demanded that I sent him the heads of my wards, I refused to do so. I rebelled against my king and called the banners, with the intention of marching to King’s Landing. Yet not all of them rose for me, and some of them even defied me. We had a tough fight at Gulltown, but in the end we managed to retake the city. Robert killed the leader of the loyalists, and the ones who remained alive switched to our side shortly after. There was no time to celebrate our victory, though: we had a great war to fight. Eddard Stark was now Lord of Winterfell, and Robert Baratheon the one of Storm’s End, so they both traveled to their seats and called their banners too. I knew, however, that it wouldn’t be enough. The Vale, the North and the Stormlands couldn’t defeat Dorne, the Reach, the Westerlands and the Riverlands if they joined against us. We needed an ally.” Jon looks at his son, who seems to be deeply interested by Jon’s story because he looks at him intently, hardly paying any mind to the piece of cake the serving girl gives him.

“And what did you do? Did you betroth Robert Baratheon to Cersei Lannister to get the Lannister’s aid?”

“Not exactly, child. Robert Baratheon was betrothed to Lady Lyanna Stark at that time. It was Ned who offered himself in marriage, but not to Cersei.” Jon smiles when he corrects his son, because even though he hasn’t guessed right, his estimation of what had happened has been much more realistic than he had expected. It seems that the boy already understands that most politic and military alliances involve a marriage. “Ned wanted to ask for Lord Hoster Tully’s help, and marry his eldest daughter, Lady Catelyn. She had been betrothed to Brandon Stark since she was 12, so Eddard believed Lord Hoster would agree to that new arrangement, now that he was the Lord of Winterfell. So we rode to the riverlands and sought your grandfather’s support.”

“Did you meet my mother there?” Robert wants to know.

“Yes, I did. I remember arriving in Riverrun with all the men we had been able to bring, with the evident purpose of rebelling against our king. Lord Hoster agreed to show Ned and me in, and to see us in his solar. He bid us sit with him in some comfortable armchairs, served us some wine to drink and, as though he hadn’t noticed the presence of our armies, he asked what the reason for our visit was. I was about to tell him about the cause for our Rebellion and ask him to help us, but fortunately Ned stepped forward.

“’Lord Hoster, you already know that my sister has been abducted by Prince Rhaegar, because my brother Brandon was on his way here when that happened, and he left your daughter waiting to go and find Lyanna, promising to marry Catelyn as soon as he could get back. But both Brandon and my father were murdered by the king, and now I am the lord of Winterfell. I have come to Riverrun to offer myself in my brother’s place as your daughter’s husband,’ he said.

“And Lord Hoster told him that he might agree to that if he could get to an agreement with me too. He asked me to speak in private and Ned went out, leaving the old men to negotiate the alliance.”

“Did Lord Hoster force you to marry my mother?” The child asks, somewhat sad for his father and disappointed on the story.

“He didn’t force me, Robert. He only told me that he would be perfectly willing to marry his eldest daughter to Eddard were we not in an open rebellion against our king, but that as that was the case, he had no wish to soil his honor by betraying the king and risk all of his family, unless both of his daughters profited from it.” Jon pauses, wondering how he could tell Robert of the motives of his father-in-law without revealing any inappropriate information for a boy of 6, and without speaking ill of the kid’s mother.

In the end he sighs and goes on. “Lord Hoster knew that our cause was just, but he wanted his daughter Lysa to find a good husband, and he was having trouble with that, because she was in love with a young man who was, in his eyes, unworthy of her, and most men didn’t want to marry a girl who loved another man, because they preferred to have a wife who love them alone. So he said that if I wanted his help I had to marry his younger daughter, taking advantage of the situation to solve his problem.”

“Then he did force you. He left you no choice,” Robert complains.

“Actually, we always have a choice, Robert.” Jon smiles at his child. “You, for instance, could have thrown a tantrum in order not to finish your dinner, and then gone to your mother in the middle of the night when you got hungry, but you decided to obey me and eat your vegetable soup to hear my story. I could have refused to remarry and fought without an alliance until I lost the war. Or I could have rejected Lord Hoster’s proposal to make an alliance with Casterly Rock, wedding Ned to Cersei. But I decided to marry your mother, do you understand? I wasn’t forced to do it. Everything we do is our own choice.”

“But you didn’t love her. Worse: you didn’t even know her! Why did you choose to marry her, if you had a choice?” The boy’s question is not answered immediately. It isn’t easy, and Jon takes his time to give his answer.

“I think I married your mother because it was the safest option. If I did, I already had an ally. On the other hand, if I went to Lord Tywin, I didn’t know if he would agree to join us. And without the support of another Great House I knew our Rebellion was doomed to fail.” Jon says and, giving his son a tender look, he adds, “Besides, I still wanted to have a child of my own, and Hoster had promised me that his daughter would give me the heir my previous wives had failed to birth. She was a strong, healthy, and young girl. Marrying her didn’t seem to be such a terrible idea for me, at that moment.

“I accepted the proposal, then, and Lord Hoster called his banners. Stark, Baratheon and me split and fought in different battles, but the only important ones were those Robert fought: he achieved a triple victory at Summerhall and suffered a defeat at Ashford. Robert was wounded there, so he hid in the Stoney Sept while the loyalists, led by Jon Connington, who was then Hand of the King, searched for him from house to house. But they couldn’t find them, because Lord Tully and Lord Stark got there in time to prevent it, and after that I joined the fight too. The Battle of the Bells, it was called. In the end, when we were all fighting and the battle started leaning to our side, Robert and his men appeared, and Jon Connington had to accept the defeat and retreat. We won, but the battle had its losses: Lord Hoster was wounded, and Denys Arryn, who was my heir then, was killed in the fight.”

“And was it the end of the war?” Robert asks innocently.

“Not nearly,” Jon snorts. “After that battle we came back to Riverrun, so that Ned and I could wed our betrothed. I married Lady Lysa the same day that Ned, who had been a son to me, married her older sister. I remember your mother’s pale face, her eyes red from so much crying.” Jon sighs. “She was just 16 namedays old. Surely you, Robert, think that a girl of that age is already an adult, but I only saw in your mother a frightened little girl. I wished to comfort her, but I couldn’t: It was me she was afraid of.”

“But father, why was mother scared of you? You hadn’t done anything to her.”

“She didn’t fear that I would hurt her. Your mother was afraid because she didn’t know me, and she would have to spend the rest of her life by my side. She feared she would live forever without love. That night, when we were alone in the room they gave us to share in Riverrun, she couldn’t restraint herself anymore and started crying. Seeing her that way, naked, huddled in a corner of the room, covering her face to conceal her tears, I again got the impression that she was a child. I tried to hug her and comfort her, to tell her that everything was fine and that I would be gentle, but she pushed me aside. She wiped her tears and willed herself to stop crying. She climbed into the bed and, with her lips trembling, she said: ‘Go on, let’s be done with this already’. And I knew then that our marriage wouldn’t be a happy one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this is a translation of another fan fic I wrote long ago, I took the liberty to make some changes in this chapter to make it more accurate. The time of the double wedding and the order in which the battles took place are the main things I changed here, so I don't think they make a big difference, but still I thought I should explain it here, in case anyone is interested.


	3. The End of the Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Then, Robert’s Rebellion was for them, and not for Lyanna,” Robert deduces. “And you were the one who started it. You did it for your wards. It was for them that you rebelled against the king, that you married my mother and that you fought in the war.”
> 
> “Aye Robert, that was so,” his father agrees.

Again, his father gets quiet, as though he has forgotten the rest of the story. Robert decides to bring him back to the present to make him continue, as he has done before.  
“Come on, father! Tell me what happened after that!” The boy asks.

  
“It’s getting late, Robert.” His father says without heeding him. “It’s time for you to go to bed.”

  
“I won’t go to bed! I won’t sleep until I know how the story ends!” Robert shouts, determined.

  
“But you already know how it ends, son,” Jon sighs. “The story I am telling you is the story of my life, and it ends here, in the Tower of the Hand, where I have dinner with a willful son who won’t go to bed when I tell him to.”

  
Now it is Robert who gets speechless. If that is the ending, it is a pretty sad and disappointing one. He had thought the story would end with the end of the rebellion, and that the part in which he appeared was an altogether different story, in which his father was an old man and the Hand of the King, instead of the great warrior of that story, and in which his mother was a mother, and not a frightened girl, as his father had described her.

  
“Come, Robert. I can put you to bed tonight, and if you wish I will tell you a bit more of my story before you sleep,” his father offers.

  
“Yes, father, I want you to go with me, and to go on with the story,” the boy agrees.

  
Then, both father and son go to the boy’s room, where he undresses, puts on his nightclothes quickly and climbs into his bed. His father sits on the chair next to it, as his mother always does when she tells him stories to get him to sleep. It is weird to see his father do what his mother usually does, Robert thinks. His father could be patient and tolerant with him, but he has never been especially tender.

  
“Well… Where was I?” His father asks, willing to resume the story.

  
Robert thinks about it for a while. He has been listening attentively, but the interruption has made him forget the moment in which they have stopped the narration. After almost a minute, he remembers.

  
“You had married Mother, but she didn’t love you. And you had got Lord Hoster’s support.”

  
“That’s right. Two weeks after the wedding, Robert Baratheon, Ned Stark, Lord Hoster and I marched to war again, leaving the newly married sisters in Riverrun. I left wishing to have a baby who brought us together, and who helped us find love.”

  
“And did I get born then?” Robert asks, hopeful.

  
“No, child. You came much later. Your mother didn’t get pregnant during the Rebellion. But Catelyn did, and she gave birth to her firstborn son while her husband, Ned, was fighting in the war,” Jon Arryn replies.

  
“And did you fight in any other big battle, after the Battle of the Bells?”

  
“Aye, I did. After that battle, all the rebel hosts marched together, and we faced the armies of the Targaryens and Dorne at the Green Fork of the Trident. I was there, and I commanded the hosts of the Vale. The battle finished with a single combat between Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar Targaryen. With his great warhammer, Robert gave the prince a blow so strong that it did not only kill him, but it also made the rubies that ornamented his armor get loose and fall to the river. In the end, those who were fighting for the Targaryens gave up, because their leader was dead, and they fled.”

  
“And did the war end then?” The boy asks.

  
“It ended for me, but not for the others. We had already won the war, but we had yet to take King’s Landing. Lord Tywin Lannister, who had not intervened in the war until that moment, joined our side in the last minute and took the city for us. Ser Jaime Lannister killed King Aerys, earning the title of “Kingslayer”, and Tywin’s men murdered Rhaegar’s wife and children, so that there would be no more Targaryens in the Iron Throne. Ned arrived in King’s Landing shortly after, and then Robert Baratheon got here too. He was crowned Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and he accepted the loyalty of the Lannisters.”

  
“What a long war it was!” Robert exclaims.

  
“And that was not the end,” his father tells him. “Though the Targaryens were already dead, the Tyrells didn’t know it, and they kept fighting for them. They had sieged Storm’s End, and Stannis Baratheon was holding the castle with an iron will, in the name of his older brother. More than a year had passed since the rebellion started, and we all wanted it to end for once, yet it still went on. So Eddard Stark rode to Storm’s End to lift the siege, and he learned that Stannis and his men had miraculously survived, thanks to a smuggler called Davos Seaworth, who had brought them food when they were about to starve. He was made a knight for that, and he is now one of Lord Stannis’s most loyal men. As soon as Ned got there the Tyrells surrendered the castle, without fighting him. He only had to tell them that they no longer had a king to fight for to convince them to lift the siege.”

  
“And did the war end after that, then?” The child insists.

  
“Almost. Ned went to Dorne then, to find his sister, Lyanna, who was the girl for whom all this had started in the first place. She was in a fortress called the Tower of Joy, and he looked for her there, with 6 of his most loyal men who had survived the war so far. But they had to face 3 members of the Kingsguard to get to her, because they blocked their way even though Ned told them that the king, the prince and his children were dead, and that the Kingsguard had nothing left to fight for. They refused to surrender even then, and they fought until their deaths.”

  
“So they defeated the Kingsguard and rescued the Lady Lyanna?” Robert asks. He has almost forgotten the girl with the rest of the story, but now that his father mentions her he wants to know what happened to her.

  
“They defeated the Kingsguard," Jon confirms, "but the only ones that survived that fight were Lord Stark and Howland Reed, one of Ned’s most loyal friends. They found Lyanna, but she was dying. Ned stayed with her until the end, and then he took her body to Winterfell, the seat of House Stark. And yes, the rebellion did end then.”

  
“What a horrible ending!” The little boy complains. “In the end, all the war was for nothing!”

  
“Well, that was what happened, and you said you wanted to hear it,” his father reminds him, calmly. “Besides, if I hadn’t rebelled against Aerys II, Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark would now be dead, so the rebellion was not in vain, at least for me.”

  
“Then, Robert’s Rebellion was for them, and not for Lyanna,” Robert deduces. “And you were the one who started it. You did it for your wards. It was for them that you rebelled against the king, that you married my mother and that you fought in the war.”

  
“Aye Robert, that was so,” his father agrees.

  
“Then, in the end, you did marry for love,” the boy concludes. “Only it wasn’t Mother you loved, but them.”

  
“Aye, child, it was for love. Love is as high as honor, and it was what led me to fight against injustice.” Jon Arryn nods with a melancholic expression.

  
“Father, why do you not love me?” The child asks him suddenly, sitting up.

  
“Who told you that I don’t love you, Robert?” The father inquires.

  
“Mother did. She told me that you don’t love me, that you are disappointed in me, and that you want to send me away. She says that is the reason why she is angry at you,” he answers, in a reproachful tone.

  
“Your mother is always angry at me,” Jon sighs, tired, and looks into his son’s eyes. “I do love you, Robert; have no doubt on that matter. Though you are not the way I wish you were, you will never be a disappointment for me, because you are my son.”

  
“Then, you are not sending me to Dragonstone?” Robert asks, hoping for it all to be a misunderstanding, and for his father to let him stay there, with him and with his mother.

  
“Robert,” Jon Arryn says, taking a deep breath. “I want you to grow up, and to mature. To grow into the good man you can become. And that won’t happen while you stay here, where you have your mother to look after you all the time. I will send you to Dragonstone with Stannis Baratheon, and you shall be his ward, as Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon were for me in the Eyrie. He and his wife Selyse will look after you and raise you while you are there. And you will meet Shireen, Stannis’s daughter. She is a bit older than you, but you can still play together…” his father tries to explain.

  
But the child doesn’t want to listen. His father wants to send him far away, to a horrible place full of scary gargoyles, where he doesn’t know anyone. He will be far from his mother, who is the only person who seems to love him, and no one will take care of him. No one will read him stories before he goes to sleep, or sing him songs or nurse him. No one will hug him tenderly in Dragonstone, and surely no one would even bother to talk to him. He feels his tears overflow his eyes at the same time as his hands start trembling.

  
His father approaches him and Robert tries to push him, but he doesn’t succeed in doing so because he cannot control his movements anymore. He shrieks and cries and shakes, and he doesn’t stop crying until maester Colemon arrives and gives him milk of the poppy. In the end he falls asleep, and he doesn’t wake up until the following day. His mother has left her room by then and for the first time since he can remember everything seems to be fine between his parents. That night the 3 of them have dinner together, and Lysa talks cheerfully with Jon, who seems as bewildered as Robert for that. The boy wonders if this means that there might be some love between his parents after all. That is the last time they eat together: the following day Jon Arryn falls ill, and he dies soon after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the end. I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to make comments; they will be more than welcome!


End file.
